Can we take the heat?

If you believe the media, we've never been hotter. But I guess they haven't been around much.

The headlines were ominous, as mainstream news outlets like CNN, CNBC, and Reuters complained about “the hottest day on record” and predicted even more record-breaking days this summer. But the last part of the story is the caveat, as these highs were “on record.” In the case of global temperatures, the records only go back to 1979. As CNN noted:

While these global temperature records are based on data sets that go back to the mid-20th century, they are almost certainly the warmest the planet has seen over a much longer time period, some scientists say, given what we know from many millennia of climate data extracted from ice cores and coral reefs.

Naturally, those ice cores and coral reefs weren’t poorly located weather measuring sites like some of ours are. But regardless of all the global warming hype out there, I live amongst two main groups of people who often keep an eye on the skies: farmers and those who depend on tourism.

Obviously farmers are in the business of trying to forecast which commodities will make them the most money in the course of a growing season - a prediction that’s tempered by what they’ve learned about their soll conditions, as in whether certain crops need to be rotated in to rejuvenate the soil - and expected broad weather patterns. In this area, the vast majority of farmers grow one or more of four basic crops during what’s become a year-round growing season: corn, soybeans, wheat, and forage grasses. Water is also important: although I’m writing this in the midst of a heavy thunderstorm downpour outside, most of the fields around here are irrigated fairly regularly with what I call the “country carwash” - those long assemblies of piping that circle around a central point. The locals don’t complain about weather, though, as much as they fear the extra development drawing down the water table.

The manmade climate change fanatics might whine about a 1.5 degree Celsius difference in the average temperature, but I don’t think that makes a whole lot of difference to the cornstalk, and in fact may improve the crop a little bit because I was always told corn likes hot, humid weather. (It does well here, that’s for sure.)

And if it’s a couple degrees hotter here, perhaps that will draw more people to the beach. The biggest fear the tourism-dependent people have is timing: into every life a little rain must fall, but the folks along the beach would rather it be during the week and definitely not on a holiday weekend. While it was a bit stormy, most of the places got their fireworks in this most recent Independence Day weekend, which meant it wasn’t a washout.

On a deeper level, though, the tourism industry has a lot to fear from the perception of global warming. It does a great job of looting money from people’s pockets.

For example, the renewable energy mandates are driving up the cost of energy, making it more expensive for travelers to get to the beach and driving up electricity costs for the resorts, restaurants, and attractions there. And the idea of offshore wind is a non-starter for many local beachgoers who don’t want to see these towers during the day or their lights flashing at night. And again, the electricity produced won’t be free because someone has to pay for building this infrastructure in adverse conditions.

Throw in the added expense of gasoline - one of those eeeeeeevil fossil fuels we’re told to avoid - and the idea of a staycation rather than a week at the beach becomes more realistic to people who are starting to feel the heat of Bidenomics. But the Biden people will tell you that you need to do your part to curb climate change.

Let me tell you something, folks. You can go out and get a Tesla, put solar panels on your house, and vote repeatedly for the morons in charge of everything in Dover (and in Washington except the House and the Supreme Court), and your contribution to preventing global warming is that of spitting into the wind. As I’ve often stated, who said that the climate we have now is the optimum, normal one? Maybe we’re supposed to be 2-3 degrees warmer, maybe 6-8. We’re pretty much basing our assumptions on 100 years of weather records and a few limited cores dug out of the Earth, and that’s very thin gruel to consume for a society that demands reams of data.

People, it’s summer. It’s supposed to be hot. I noted a couple weeks back on social media that I’d had to bring a hoodie to every Thursday night Shorebirds game I’d gone to this season because it was chilly. Turns out this past Thursday night was finally warm enough that I could forgo it - even though I got a bit damp from the shower that lasted a couple innings. I’d rather sit through an evening game at 80 degrees than one at 55, so bring me a little global warming, will ya?